The American dream of a society in which every citizen has an equal opportunity to succeed is evaporating. In fact, measured social mobility which used to rank us near the top of the industrial world now places us near the bottom. This decline is due primarily to the emergence of a small group of large corporations and wealthy individuals that unduly influences both our politics and our economics.

Over the last 30 years an accelerating upward stream of earnings and assets has enriched a tiny percentage at the expense of the vast majority. Today the spread between an elite collection of "haves" and the rest of the population is as great as it ever has been. These powerful special interests have orchestrated legislative efforts at every level of government designed to entrench, and expand, the current degree of economic and political inequality.

In order to minimize the chances for a reversal of the present situation a number of state legislatures have engaged in blatantly anti-democratic actions. Some (e.g. Florida) require a valid government-sourced identification document for all those seeking to vote. If the intent really were to combat fraud, rather than to restrict voting by certain economic and ethnic groups, biometric I.D. could be issued, as they have been to 814 million in India. Some state legislatures (Ohio, for example) have limited early voting and reduced the number of polling places in designated neighborhoods. If the desire really was to have more democracy, rather than ensuring particular outcomes, voting would be made easier, not more difficult.

These and other comparably disturbing trends in areas such as education, housing, and employment are cementing a permanent underclass. For the last three decades far too many of our policies have been inhibited by sentiments similar to those once articulated by Herbert Hoover: "No economic equality can survive the working of biological inequality"

True equality of opportunity has to begin with breaking the stranglehold exerted by monied special interests. This hold can only be loosened by a reversal of the massive upward redistribution of national wealth. No reversal can take place without a complete revision and re-orientation of the tax code.